


A Touch of Family

by Merfilly



Series: Wintergreen DCU Free For All Table [4]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two small scenes between Wintergreen and a daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Touch of Family

"Stop fussing, father, and be still!" 

Wintergreen grumbled...quietly under his breath...as his youngest child continued to apply butterfly stitches to the cut along his arm. His good arm at that, the one he preferred to fire from. He'd be out of action a week or two for that bit of carelessness.

"If you ever say another word to me about the methods I use in my work, I will not speak to you for a year," Joyce continued once he had stopped. "One would think you wished to start a war, the way you handled that!"

"Me? Start a bloody war? When they're raging all over the place without a bit of aid from me?" he asked indignantly, before grimacing and looking away from the gash. "Bloody well hate this part, I'll have you know."

"Then don't make it so necessary, father. Imagine, my father, the grizzled..."

"Not so much now," he protested.

"...veteran flinching at a little blood and meat showing," she continued as if he had not even spoken. "However does that man put up with you?"

"Generally by it being his meat and blood," Wintergreen grudgingly admitted, before letting her move on to the cut across his shoulders.

* * *

Joyce settled into her chair in front of the fire. The recent icy storm that had settled on Europe made her quite happy for the primitive form of heating in her flat. She looked at her father, who seemed millions of miles away. That was no surprise to her, given how moody her own thoughts were.

It was the anniversary of her brother's death, and it weighed on them each with a different finality.

Joyce had grown up with only faint memories of the man she now called father, as she had been just school age when her mother divorced him. Edward, on the other hand, had been some years older, and cherished his memories of the man that had shown him to box, how to hold a rifle, the right way to pull a trigger on an old Browning. 

There was never a doubt that Edward would join up as soon as he was of age, nor that he would pursue a combat arms specialty.

Through it all, Wintergreen had kept a distance, watching from afar, pride in these younger children of his rivaled only by his caution that his history never harm them.

"Father," Joyce finally said, knowing he was as unsettled by his trip to a therapist that day (and she was glad to see him there; her father was such a private man, she doubted he could see his own raw edges) as he was by the date.

"Yes, Jo?"

//That old nickname...he is lost in memory.// "Edward...never stopped looking up to you. His dearest wish was to be the hero you were."

Wintergreen closed his eyes, and nodded slowly. "Thank you, my daughter." He thought back to the receipt of the official word from Sidney, his eldest son, that Edward had been killed in the line of duty. Maybe if he had stayed in their lives, Edward would have been a better soldier for it.

Thoughts like that, he knew, were crippling, and he could not dwell on them.


End file.
